Pretty in Pictures

"In all forms of collecting the hunt for bargains adds zest to the game."

~ Edward James Nankivell,

19th century English journalist

It's been a bit of a blue and white month for me. I get this way in  the summer, tending toward blue to cool me off I guess. Lately, everywhere I turn, I seem to find and fall in love with something blue and white. Yesterday, for instance, I was driving home from the library and saw a sign that said "VINTAGE SALE." What?? I thought it was just a new, fancy name for "Garage Sale" and tried to keep going straight but my turn signal suddenly started flashing right and the car went to auto pilot and there I was, turning in front of an old house with actual old stuff for sale.

My kids and I used to love to rummage through garage sales and come up with neat toys and games, sports equipment, etc.  I gave up on garage sales quite a few years ago when we no longer needed toys. And, anyway, all everyone seemed to be selling was baby stuff or junk and do I really need any more junk? No THANK you, I have enough of my own that I need to get rid of. Once, I found a lovely silk Ralph Lauren scarf for $1.00. I still wear it and I still get compliments, LOL. No one knows.

The Vintage Sale house (and stuff inside) belonged to a lady who seemed to love blue. Linens, dishes and other household things for sale, all blue and white. A teal blue area rug. A beautiful white iron bed lined with blue and white pillows. A blue lamp. Oh my. I wish I had brought my camera. Most of it was furnishings and other things I did not need so I only bought a few small items because as it turned out, all I had was $10 cash on me, LOL. (Imagine, if I hadn't just paid my $2.50 library fine I would have had a whole $12.50 to splurge.  . . . )

I ended up choosing a small blue and white pitcher and a china serving platter, also in blue and white. They don't match anything I own, I just had to have them, you know?

 

Seriously, how could I NOT buy this plate?? Sentimentalist that I am, I almost tear up just looking at it, it's so delicate and beautiful.

I also bought the sweetest little doll chair (I do love my doll chairs), not in blue and white, but perfect to set on a shelf or even on a blue and white doll quilt. Maybe I'll make a small blue and white pillow for it.

You'll be pleased to know I got change back from my $10.00 too. My husband just shook his head when he came home and looked at my finds. What, I said? WHAT's wrong with loving blue?? Tell me.  

Even if I end up not actually using any of it, you have to admit, it sure looks pretty in pictures . . .  

July Challenge - Blue & White Quilt

Still working on your little blue and white quilt for July? Two weeks left until the end of the month if you're intent on making one quilt a month with us. Plenty of time to start and finish before we move on to the quilt for August. Although I've already made 2 of these quilts, I put some more blocks together yesterday, just to show you how simple it is. Break it up -  spend an hour or two this week and your blocks will be done. Then you can sew the borders on next week. You need six of these blocks to make the quilt  (each block contains 4 hourglass units, for a total of 24. Check out the pattern in American Doll Quilts for instructions).

In the original quilt, I used a variety of indigoes and shirtings for a sort of mild scrappy look. You may want to make it in 2 prints if you don't have a lot of these particular colors in your scrap collection.

I also sewed some of these tiny tiny buttons in the center of each block. Looks like I used up all my blue ones already. You may want to pick up some 1/8 inch dark blue ribbon if you wish to make the little bows in the corners of the borders and on the pillow.

Next week I'll show you how to make the little doll pillow. We'll also have our next Stencil Giveaway at the end of this month. This time there will be 4 winners.

Thanks for all of your positive e-mails in light of the recent drama in the Yahoo small quilt group. I am sorry to say that I just do not have time to answer all of them personally but know that I do appreciate all of the kind sentiments. I'm still on a break from that as I try to figure out the direction I'd like to take it but I will suggest a quilt for the next month's challenge the first week in August.

It's so darn HOT. The garden is not doing very well. I have to admit I just cannot stand to be out there in the heat for longer than a few minutes at a time so I haven't been as attentive as I had planned. My idea that this was the year I could turn it around sort of fell flat. Oh well, maybe next year.

What flowers looked like last week.

How the flowers feel this week, LOL. Guess I'd better get out there and water despite the sprinkling ban in town. Hope the rain that's predicted comes tomorrow.

A Little Time for Me

"The time to relax is when you don't have time for it."

- Sydney J. Harris

I've made a little more progress on this piece. I'm not the fastest cross stitcher in the world . . . .

(Cross stitch patterns by Blackbird Designs from - A Schoolgirl's Work, Samplers from the Spencer Museum of Art)

This one may be next. Gotta make them all . . .

(Cross stitch patterns by Blackbird Designs from  - A Schoolgirl's Work, Samplers from the Spencer Museum of Art)

"Live your life from your heart. Share from your heart. And your story will touch and heal people's souls." - Melody Beattie

Signs That My Daughter Is Home

Our house is no longer our own since my daughter came home from college for the summer . . .

I seem to be spending a lot more time cleaning bathrooms and picking up  : )

Her makeup is everywhere . . .

Suddenly, there are shoes all over the house. Oh, wait, those are actually mine . . . .  LOL. Hers are way cooler and are not from Walmart.  Puhleeze!

My favorite quilt is back home. Like a puppy, it seems to follow her around the house.

Target's profits have increased dramatically over the last several weeks . . . .

I'm making muffins for breakfast again . . . .

Here's the clever recipe! Just add water . . . .

Call me simple but they still taste pretty good.

My ipod speakers keep going missing . . . .

Curious? I may have mentioned them before. Here's where you can find some of these cute ipod speakers for your very own. So cheap, you can buy two. Very cost effective if everyone in the house borrows them without asking and they get lost or broken. My husband once bought me expensive speakers for my ipod but that was a few years ago when we had two teenagers living here and somehow they mysteriously got broken. No one knows how THAT happened, LOL.

Have a good Sunday - I woke up and it was 70 degrees here in Chicago! Much better than the 103 temps we've been having this past week. I might actually get out in the garden today.

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Oh, yes, you are not imagining things - that IS a hexagon tote bag up there.  I bought it at Borders before they tanked. Hope you are also finding some time to work on these little things now so you will be ready for our hexagon quilt when October rolls along.

 

Jewelry Kick

I went to a Fine Arts Fair in my town recently. It's always interesting to see what local artists are up to and we try to go every summer.

This year there were more jewelry booths than usual, which was fun for me. There were some very nice pieces and seeing a variety of handmade jewelry always inspires me to take out my bead boxes and make something myself after I get home.

I've been on a turquoise kick for quite awhile.

My daughter had a birthday recently and while I was shopping for her gifts, I noticed some great scrappy beaded jewelry. This also inspired me to spend a little time playing around with my beads, staying inside, trying to keep cool.

 

Nothing fancy -

Like hand quilting, beading is relaxing and therapeutic.

I sold some jewelry on my Etsy shop a few years ago . . . .

I picked up this cute pendant at a quilt show last year and decided it needed a pretty beaded "chain."

A touch of turquoise mysteriously appears in almost everything I make lately.

Julia made these pretty bracelets for me to wear doubled. Hi, Jules!

My favorite part of the Art Fair was seeing all the dogs. No one told me dogs were allowed! I would have brought mine . . . .

Small Quilt for July

You will love the little quilt I have chosen for this month's small quilt challenge. It's one of  my all-time favorites from my book from long ago, American Doll Quilts.

(Photo in book by Brent Kane)

This is the first 2-color quilt we have made in our Small-Quilt-a-Month challenge. Great for those of you who do not especially like the scrappy look, although I used a lot of different shirtings and blues in mine for a rather muted scrap look. If you're not fond of blue - how about making it in red and white . . . or pink and green?? Or red, white and blue if you're feeling particularly patriotic. The possibilities are endless. And while you're at it, why not make 2? Christmas will be here before you know it and they're small . . .

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Here's something new you will want to add to your fabric collection. I just received some samples of a new line by Pam Buda for Marcus Bros. It's called Heart of the Prairie-

The line has a lot of great indigoes. I think these will be perfect for making this little quilt.  Pam's new fabric should be in shops now.

This week, pick out your fabrics and start cutting the pieces. (If I get inspired to make ANOTHER one, you can see I've already picked out my fabric.) This should not take you very long. Next week, you can piece the  hourglass blocks together. The week after that, put the borders on. No stress. Take it in steps and you will certainly finish by the end of the month.

One thing I love about this quilt is that border. I sewed a small decorative stitch with dark blue thread through the center of the border. You know, those fancy stitches on your machine you never actually use, LOL? Have fun with this one - you're halfway there!

Sweet and simple and summery

Stencil Winners

Thanks so much to those of you who posted a comment here last week to win a free stencil.  Your comments were so cute and often funny and I could not pick easily so I thought it would be most fair to have my husband choose with his random-numbers-generator brain. So, here you go - the winners, picked at random, of the Rick Rack stencil are -

             Gayle at - The Middle Sister blog

             Sharlene at - sharzlee at aol dot com

             Kristy at  - soardkg at fuse dot net

Please e-mail me your mailing addresses and I will contact The Stencil Company and have your stencils sent out to you as soon as possible.

Many thanks again to the Stencil Company for this great idea. To those of you who did not win this time - if I could, I would send a stencil (or 2 or 3) to each and every one of you.  Please come back and  try again next month. And pick up some hand quilting between now and then. You will love it!

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Here it is,  almost the end of June. Is your June quilt finished?

This one was very quick and I know you are eager to move on to a new one. The next one will not be quite as simple but I will pick one that is just as cute. I would love to choose one from my first book, American Doll Quilts, but am not sure if many of you have that one. I have not decided yet and thought I would leave it up to all of you. Amazon has copies available if you do not own it. You can sometimes find copies on eBay. Also, my publisher, Martingale, has e-books available here.

Post a comment to let me know if you think this is a fair choice since it is an older book and hard to find. I suspect many of you probably already own it. Otherwise, pick a book you would like to use for the next Small Quilt of the Month and I will take your thoughts into consideration over the next couple of days before I decide. Don't forget, we will be making the Hexagons quilt from The Civil War Sewing Circle in October and that will make 3 from that book so far. I'd like to mix it up a little.

Remember that you can post a photo of your finished quilts on my Flickr group . Some of you have done that already and I love seeing your photos. You can always add any photo of a quilt you have made from one of my patterns or books.

I look forward to sharing our next small quilt for the month of July with you. NOTE:  I will post it on MONDAY - July 2.  Please do not e-mail me on Sunday, asking if I forgot. Look for it on Monday instead of Sunday. It will still be the beginning of the month and you will have plenty of time.

Adios, muchachas (I have to go, I am making an enchilada casserole for dinner . . .  Ole!)